To be clear, I wanted to like this season of Jack Ryan, really I did. So it is with regret that I inform you that it was not good. This is not, I hasten to add, for lack of trying on the part of John Krasinski who continues to bring a likeable everyman vibe to an impossibly talented character... until the final scenes that is. More on that later. The other returning characters- James Greer, Mike November, and Elizabeth Wright- continue to have good chemistry with Jack and each other, though with so many disparate storylines going on, and a shortened season (only six episodes) they don't have a lot of opportunities to demonstrate that chemistry, more's the pity. In fact, Jack often seems rather sidelined in the show which bears his name, which I found odd until I read that the new character introduced this season, Domingo Chavez, is slated to get a spin off series. It seems the writers, in their haste to set up this new show, may have forgotten that they were still tasked with putting together a coherent and entertaining season of Jack Ryan. This is always a mistake- just ask anyone who's watched the ghastly Star Trek TOS episode Assignment: Earth, in which the Trek Triumvirate of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy was ignominiously elbowed aside to showcase these two kooks in an outing so lackluster that their supposed spinoff never saw the light of day. As feared, there was no way to wrap up all the various Jack Ryan plot points in a creditable way in the allotted time frame. For example, the Greer family stuff is pretty much dropped during the second half of the series, except for one monumentally unbelievable scene. In it, Greer bonds with his resentful son by having the teenager drive him to the place where he is leading a SWAT team to take down a terrorist. I mean, I don't expect a great deal of realism in these shows, but come on. Speaking of unbelievable, the scene where Jack is tortured is a bit much. As part of his torture, the baddies take a vat of boiling water and pour it over his back. Then when he is rescued, Chavez wraps a blanket around him- against his skin- and a short time after that, Jack is wearing a shirt and moving around with no difficulty- he even throws himself back first against the side of a car to dodge gunfire without even wincing. Again, I don't expect complete devotion to realism here, but did no one working on this show stop to consider what shape someone's back would actually be in after being doused with boiling water? Also as suspected, Cathy becomes embroiled in Jack's case when it turns out the woman she's been working with on a WHO humanitarian effort is actually the main baddie. Collaborating with the WHO should have been the first red flag, frankly. But at least she appears to have sought Cathy out to gain leverage over Jack, rather than it being a big coincidence, like in the first season. Cathy ends up being held hostage, forcing Jack and his team to come to the rescue. But of course Cathy can't appear to be a damsel in distress saved by big strong men, so the erudite physician wrestles the gun away from the terrorist guarding her and shoots him. Okay. I suppose that I should have given a spoiler warning about the woman terrorist, but it's really not necessary: it's obvious from the get-go who the bad guys are... everything is fairly predictable to anyone who has watched this genre before. Which is a big reason why it feels like the writers weren't really trying. I could go on, but it's not really necessary. Suffice to say that this season was a disappointment and it ends in such an off-putting way. Jack is once again testifying before the senate committee and showboats by waving papers he says proves the head of the committee- who just happens to be from Texas, and voted against Elizabeth's appointment, so you know what that means- was taking payments from the baddies to fund his reelection campaign. This plot point seems to have popped out of nowhere unless I missed something when my mind wandered, something I don't discount as a possibility. But it just seems tacked on the end to teach that bad misogynist (and probable Republican) a lesson, and to give Jack an opportunity to grandstand, which he does. He gives a pompous speech about corruption, etc., and it's just cringe from start to finish. Who wants to see the protagonist wagging his finger like the proverbial church lady and spouting pretentious crap? Ryan seems very far from the "every man" type in this scene. It reminded me of a clip I saw from one of those recent Marvel shows where one of the main characters- Falcon?- is standing in front of a crowd, righteously lecturing some politician about how he needs to "do better". And you know that they're really lecturing the audience. It's tiresome and lazy, and not good entertainment... which, come to think of it, is a pretty accurate summary of this season of Jack Ryan.
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